March 10, 2009--Images released by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), show three galaxies as they were when the universe was roughly half its current age--possibly because the light that made these pictures took billions of years to reach Earth telescopes.

Each galaxy is shown twice. Below the standard image is a version overlaid with rainbow hues, designed to show the motion of gases within the galaxy, as detected by the ESO's Very Large Telescope. Red areas depict parts of the galaxy moving away from Earth. Blue areas are moving toward us.

Researchers hope to learn the history of distant galaxies' movement through space with a combination of gas and optical data.